Saturday, March 1, 2008

Welcome to the fifteenth issue of CSR! By now, you regular readers know my baby likes to wear Emperor's clothes and hates to eat with a bib. It is fasinated by anything that stays up all night or has the uncanny ability to turn the words of poets into an Easter egg hunt. Issue Fifteen is an excellent example. This month CSR is filled with stunning photographs by an avid amateur, along with art that blossoms like hair from an earlobe. Add to that, a group of wonderful poets, an intriguing music maker and one magical book review and you've got the ingredients for a bubbling concoction that taste like curry when it was still a jackal. Trust me, when you finish this issue you'll feel like the next postal rate increase. Or no one could have guessed she was bow-legged. Either way, this issue will highjack your interest with delights seldom found in container cargo. So escape from spring cleaning and get busy...

I love reading abouthow the classmate who ranthe school yearbook likea Rupert Murdoch operationand turned the campus paperinto a gossip rag fitfor people who matterednow assembles lines ofSloppy Joes for dress inspectionin a school her offspringno doubt attend even thoughshe suspects poison fromenemies but only testsher own secured mealand even today whenshe’s forced to revisitold stomping grounds,she makes certain thather children’s footstepsdon’t even pick up dirtin their sneaker’s groovesand checks their clothes for eventhe faintest speck of blackafter crossing barely-therebridges of char and ignoringthe kids when they askhow they got that waywhile they’re too nervous to wonderwhy they even have to goacross them in the first placeor why they walk ahead of her.

Child At The Pet Store

If the shrieking over mom’s challengeto his ownership of all the glassed creaturesculminates with the birds droppingfrom their perches and the neighboringmammals shivering their way to stillness,two cage cleaners will instinctivelytake the place of absent scholarsto debate whether this massacrewas intentional or not. Proof besides Jesusthat children equal a mysterious force,which has demands that defy logicand frightens you into speed of resolutionover understanding.

Naked as the oaksduring the dead season, but this is notthat time. This is spring, and Isearch for hues to paint fleshdark as bark, vibrant as the leaves, softas newly opened buds. Don’t pretendto bathe with the aroma,honeysuckle climbs limbs,caresses natural partswith aide of palms.Senses become made, skin reddened.More days will passbefore unripe blackberry huedescends, mellows in tone, becomes.Until then, I will stand hereamongst the wild wheatnaked as the oaksduring the dead season.

Reflections

Laid back,back arched to formof the stairs that place herin front of the mirroredwall. Fingertips tap taptapping sensitive placements,mass of peach tinted fleshasking for a song to sing a-cappella. Strickland’s Floatingsoothes the minutespassing before her like lost limbsfrom the willow that stands beside the wetnessof the river, swimming in thenout of sight, but always drippingwith the excessive flow. The divebecomes complete, the small appendagesof her limb sucked inside,grasping at the interior depth,searching for the bottom soil,the pebbles, the freshly drownedleaves, something, anythingworth satisfying the clinchedmuscles, the urge to cometo the end where she might be held after-wards. Her eyes have openedwith the flood and the reflectionshe sees is no longer hers, but meconsidering the concept of holdingsomeone other than myself.

*Previously published in Divine Animal

Simic Prophesies Repeated History and the Death of One Voice

“I have a kind of Halloween mask which I am afraid to put on”Charles Simic

Fifty years later I still standon this corner where I shouldn’t be.Lights have not returned.My coat is not neededin the decreased heat of night.The dog has answered, sitsby my side, black snout damp

with bodily fluids found from withina gutted marketplace.Fear fails. I put onthe Halloween mask to coversenses. There are no holes for eyesto see scenes in the darknessof falling walls.

A lone voice reports from the dustof successes or small failuresthen falters and fadesaway. No death, justthe extinguished purpose of life.

Lonely Fish Without Oxygen

Searching throughfishbowl of jellybeans;magnifying glassspying all the liquorishflavored black oneslooking for a beatingheart of red that mightsweeten hollownessof empty rooms.

*Previously published in Unlikely Stories

Extracting DNA From the Elephant Man

Doctors were hard pressed to helpthen and only now can they beginto understand. Time spent hop-scotching

across the land to reveal the freak,the hospital across the street from home-that room that holds the curse, but failed

to keep the boy not ever a man.Death visited during the evening,shared promises of afterlife

while consuming biscuits and tea.Answers may never cometo fulfill needs of those who laughed,

stared , turned their heads, or offered hands.Forget the shape, the form; rememberthat the sideshow was a man.His name was Joseph. And mine remainsdifficult to pronounce for the onlookers. We sharethe same path; that quest for leaving the gray

to discover that we were alivebefore the needle had to extract our memoryto prove that our form was not contagious.

the hairs on your head tiny wingsmore glorious than cartoon princesseson a wardrobe of pink t shirtsas you gaze upon your kingdom,major domo tree by your side,spider knights doing battle with enemymosquitoes at your feetfreed at last of glass slippers

Deus Ex Machina

suspend the beliefthe heat caughtwithin your claviclecomes not from the blood—hungry—running as wolves through your veins

madness is catchinglook up into the raftersbelieve in the ghosts suspendedwith cloth and cordlisten to their whispers…this is life…this is real…it all comes together in the end

Lovers

tick:

long black hands stretch acrossthe smooth white face that seemsto fall into their embrace; they laugh

tock:

glorying in the march of timethat ages the world around themas they stand tall on firm mahogany legssurrounded by numerous children

Assault With Batteries

Having dug them from the underbellyof the latest plastic wonderyou throw them across the roomcopper topped missiles making contactwith your mother’s facetearing her gaunt smile to shredsshattering framed glass.

Breathe in. Sharp. Think.

Breathe out. Slow. Move.

Make your way into the kitchenfor the dustpan and broomgrinding glass beneath you heels,kick the D cells under the couch.

Drive down to Walmartas if fresh Duracellscould bring the homemade back.

One of the Boys

Your three older brothers have hikedthe Appalachian Trail in February,wrecked bikes among the Catskills,stalked by grizzlies in the Rockies,so it will take more than witnessinga moth’s dismemberment withoutshrieking, having the whiskeyfinally go down smooth and hotlike it should, to impress them.These are the John Wayne, Davy Crockett,Sons of the Pioneers who sang you to sleep,charged by your parents when they left for Heavento be your cavalry and teach you all you’ll ever need to know.So when one comes up as you coax the embers back to lifeand says “That’s a damn good fire”, your heart rears upon it’s hind legs before galloping off into the sunset.

A row of automobileslined up in the twilightlike red speckleson the blacktop. Imaginarypalm trees wrinkled in myfingersas the light from unseen candlesburned me. My eyeballsrolled across the dusty, tessellated flooras I sat in the food court rememberingthe traffic, sipping diet soda through ared-striped straw.

chilly webs of lightningspackle the skylike cracks in the universe. imaginaryglobes of firedrift throughthe rings ofSaturnand the monsters of the idfill the imaginary voidwith howling.the honeysuckle vine twines itself around a rusty trellisblistering hotbolts of lightningconnect imaginaryforce fieldswith giantsparkswebbed like cracksentangled in theuniverse.

Unsafe Sex In The Suburbs

There is no expiation. There is nointerdiction. There are only crowsroosting in the crabapple tree. Theapocalypse turns out to be acellular problem and the soulis nothing but a bowlof chemical soup.Somebody give Bernini a Martini . . .Neatly trimmed lawns cursethe sod that poundsgrass up into the naked air.Grass grows best in rotting flesh butfertilizer will do.The raucous birds cry and that is the onlybenedictionthe atomic number of carbonhas to give.God is pushing a lawnmower across thepellucid sky. Sixteen year old girls have saddledup the apocalyptic horses and are ridingamong the pastel houses. They cannot see that thegene pool has become an oblong swimmingpool filled with acid rain, deadcats and chlorine.My hands are shaking even as I type this . . .Cathedrals of bones are floating above theholy Ganges which isdesperately polluted. Words fall from my fingerslike shit from the asshole of the damnedbut still,I carry an elephant of awareness on my back.Capitalist birds are gobbling sunlightlike theyown a thermonuclear furnace and happycrows are roosting in thetwisted blades of the crabappletree.

The pepper tree seemed so oldThis morning. Broken branches litteredThe soft dirt, where grassOnce grew when I wasA boy. I used to play games there.My brothers and sisters used to smoke thereAs if hidden from view. ARope would be looped aroundThe branches now gone, whichHeld up the birthday piñatas.My father often sat under itReading a book orJust enjoying its shade on hot afternoons.As the years have shuffled through more branchesHave fallen on their own. ScarsAppear where limbs broke off. Birds continueTo make their lives there, singing songs ofMorning, afternoon, and evening. The pepperTree stands, a witness of our lives.

I need wisdom.I don’t need medicine.I need the adviceOf a German shepherd.I have had itWith psychiatristsAnd their rounds, one minuteOf “How do you feel?” whenI’m blunted onLegal drugs, which destroyMy maniasAnd hallucinations.I need to hearAdvice from a dog’sPerspective. ABark of wisdom, which manCannot provide.This world is going toThe dogs anyway. ThisIs how I feel. Write itAll down in yourProgress notes. I don’tSee much hope, butI have not given up.

After Evening

The voice in the moonWhispers nothing sweet.It disturbs me from sleep.In the next room aMadwoman hears aCloud. Her eyes fill with rain.After evening wolvesPatrol the hallways.They howl at the voice inThe moon, which shines itsLight through my bedroomWindow. The madwomanKnocks on my door, saysThe wolves have gone, asksIf I’d like to join her.

The future’s secure, fearfully and wonderfully made,Rainbows are day glow, DNA unravels10,000 times to the moon and back. Breaking outFor a few timeless tocks before oblivion,Tying us endlessly as kindly as chains,Dreams drift away through a far window.What can we do but advance in love, or expectation,Or indifference; Taking one another apartWith a type of ritual elegance?With loved ones and enemies, eternity slips gently off.Each lack of original thought hunches, huddled in itsBrown anorak, watching incomprehensible trains of ideas.It’s balance and vertigo in almost mandarin proportionsUntil all the puzzles end in kisses or screams.Give names to sensations, colours to feelings,Sounds to a word we cannot recreate-Like swallows feeding their dead young,Ghosts brass rubbing themselves in silence.“It’s all worthwhile. “ Laughs the voiceThat no one anywhere will ever hear now or ever.Between each breath, each heartbeat, each soul’s flutter,Something interesting forever labours to be born.And somewhere in this poem there is a round of applause;But not here … not here …………………………………

A Sense Of History

They say,It is quite something to lose.It is quite something to be wrong;To give one's precious life to the passing gale;To forsake all but the distant hosannas of the unseen starsAnd still then to be one's own.

They say,Such a being may stand on the high hill called HeroAnd shadow the bland blue skyWith the back of his rightness-steady handAnd for him,As for the headline glory of a terrible victory,Ten million men shall die.

They say thisAnd smile satisfied as some worm presses the final button alone;And no mouths are left to speak of legends,No hand to write the great book of records...And all the jolly journalists catch fire before they use their phones.

God knows, Cupid’s a funny little bugger;Perhaps he suffers from indigestion,Because love doesn’t make arrows any easier to stomach.Two people slicing a melon preciselyAnd sucking the same flesh together… hardly ever !So young she loved soft French cheese, German wineAnd curiously cabbage with vinegar and cashew nuts.He liked a pretty girl, a nutty pint and“You can’t go wrong with a nice thick steak.”They have been married for 50 years.For her so many choices, for him two –Shirts need mending, meals piping hot;Meat stuffed pastry with salt soaked chips.No preserved lemons, sin-ripened Queen olives,No imaginative continental buffet lunches.Cupid’s arrow so thin at first can penetrate a world;Candle flames of crocus hide memories of snow.They ate together though they ate differentlyAs three children grew riddled with liquorice,Steak puddings, Moules Mariniere and Tarte Tatin.Two daughters married, the food was kindness itself.Their son died in a car crash conferencing,The moblile phone still talkingAs they cut his body from the car.The cold funeral food was sandwiches.She offers meals and mendings to grandchildrenWith hands of double patience,Although soufflés now sometimes fail to riseAnd meals increasingly are imperfect doppelgangersOf ones served years before.Black and Deckers aggressively competeWith bleeping textphones deriding language,Where once careful conversations were well fed.Dying flowers are haunted by butterflies;Crocus candle flames can no longer hide the ice to come.They have been married for 50 years.Love and God constitute more questions than answers;This world is merely the tip of the iceberg.Now so late so old at night they sleep hungrily together,The bedroom echoing with strangely rumbling stomachs

Full Catastrophe Living

In a car called catastrophe he comes calling,A figure carrying a sawn off shotgun,Ghosts engraved into its barrels;Through a mist of headlights footsteps soundingThe squeaking of abandoned gallows,He approaches the moment’s auditoriumAmidst a tumult of nameless pasts and futures.This morning he pissed piss grey as graveyard dustAnd shaved without reflection, violent half moonTime after time finding too much its mark.When he turns the driving mirror slightlyHe catches this stranger, unsmiling,Face caked with blood; moonlight grey,Metal magnifying destinies of rust.Fingering the triggers now, two painfully pulled teeth,His grip turns knuckle white on the stock.A memory whipping slantwise suddenly rapsResonant as a spade ringing on hit stone.“Shut it!” He hisses under broken breath.Stepping from the enclosure of eveningMoonlight cracks concrete as his grey shadow stalks.In a car called catastrophe he comes calling,A nightmare from two thousand dreams ago.He offers release soft, as rest on a child’s eyesWho wept so long then fell asleep, or harsh, sharp.All over the world, each night each day he calls,Waiting still as the caught breath,Listen he may be coming right now … or just arrived.

The Chicago Picasso (often just The Picasso) is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Chicago, USA. The sculpture, which was dedicated on 15 August 1967, stands in Daley Plaza in the Chicago Loop . At 50 feet tall, and weighing 162 tons it was the first such major public artwork in Downtown Chicago, and has become a well known landmark. Visitors to Daley Plaza can often be seen climbing on and sliding down the base of the sculpture.

The sculpture was commissioned by the architects of the Richard J. Daley Center in 1963. Picasso completed a maquette of the sculpture in 1965, and approved a final model of the sculpture in 1966. The cost of constructing the sculpture was $351,959.17, paid mostly by three charitable foundations: the Woods Charitable Fund, the Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Foundation, and the Field Foundation of Illinois. Picasso himself was offered payment of $100,000 but refused it, stating that he wanted to make a gift of his work,although he never explained what the sculpture was intended to represent.

The sculpture was fabricated by United States Steel Corporation in Gary, Indiana, before being disassembled and relocated to Chicago. Before fabrication of the final steel sculpture was started, a 12 feet tall wooden model was constructed for Picasso to approve, this was eventually sent to the Gary Career Center. Ground was broken in Daley Plaza for the construction of the sculpture on May 25, 1967. The efforts of the City of Chicago to publicize the sculpture—staging a number of press events before the sculpture was completed, and displaying the maquette without a copyright notice—were cited as evidence in a 1970 district court case where the judge ruled that the city's actions had resulted in the sculpture being dedicated to the public domain.

The sculpture was initially met with controversy. One Chicago City Council alderman immediately proposed replacing it with a statue of Ernie Banks. There was speculation on the subject, which ranged from a bird, or aardvark to Picasso's pet Afghan Hound, but a copper maquette is titled "Tête de Baboon" (Baboon Head). Find out more about this great artist at www.picasso.fr/anglais

Description: Fata Morgana mingles personal experience, history, mythology, politics, and natural science to explore the relationships of conception and perception, the self finding its way through a physical and social world not of its own making, but changing the world by its presence.

Before fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a professional singer and songwriter, Carla Bruni had already been included on Business Age's list of the 20 highest-paid models, had appeared in the films Prêt-à-Porter and Unzipped, and had been romantically linked to Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Kevin Costner, and Donald Trump.

The heiress of a tire manufacturing fortune, Bruni's family moved from their native Italy to Paris, France, when she was four. After attending boarding school in Switzerland she returned to Paris, where she was encouraged to try modeling as a career by her brother's girlfriend. Paul Marciano — president and creative director of GUESS? — picked Bruni's headshot out of a stack of photographs and turned the 19-year-old into an overnight sensation. She kept busy doing photo shoots and runway work for Prada, Chanel, Christian Dior, and Givenchy.

In a 1998 interview Bruni declared that the lack of creativity she was experiencing in the fashion world had led her to the decision to only model in special cases. Rare appearances for Yves Saint Laurent and Jean Paul Gaultier kept her in the fashion press, but she was making even more headlines in the gossip world, where she was painted as the woman responsible for the breakups of Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall as well as Donald Trump and Marla Maples.

In 2003, a reinvented Bruni released her debut album, Quelqu'un M'a Dit. An album filled mostly with songs written by the singer in the style of her idols — Joni Mitchell and Serge Gainsbourg — Quelqu'un M'a Dit was an instant hit in France, selling one million copies soon after its release. Her second album, No Promises, was released in January 2007. Profound, potent and imbued with delicate beauty, No Promises is a very special project from a very special artist. An album, if you like, of pure poetry. Visit her website at http://www.carlabruni.com/

But gave it away to the fingers, theytouched the bleak edgeof an unmoneyed future& I saw itlike some untethered boatreact with a fingertip nudgejust float awayto the open sea of a stranger's way.That was so simple.What else?Fingers washstrokethey fight, fuck up & fix.We waitas their batons rule the beat.

It's them who work the guns,take us down from treesto their shitty little thatchon a beige savannah plain.

Glumunder the thumbcommute between fingerfoods& a hand signed repossession order.Our minds sit lockedin boxes made of muscle.

*Previously published in Bluepepper, 2006

Snowbound, Waiting For The Hearse

Directions:If & when freezing Mum she’d want to knowthat all the pleats were tidy –hair done, the best string of pearls.The deep freeze must be thoroughly scrubbedthen scented with 4711vanillaorange oil & hospital grade bleach – effecteternal but tidyboth practical & kitchen based.Her hands should be foldedbut eyes propped open…she will scowl at you through all the blizzards/the frozen xmas bird of mother-love.

*First published in Sugar Mule

Free Dark

After air,only darkness is free.The police had spotlightson the body, a plain white sheetcovering less than planned &the blood was a gloss to burn fire engines.The television people were there &the official lighting was a blessing becausethere was a truth to talk about.Diana was buried tonightMother Theresa & thisjust support actsbut pulse lostjust as firmly.Death shrinksbut himin young-guy clothes on Saturday nightfits the young guy victim profilelike 501s & attitude footwear.He was my first& deserves more distinction than that.

Somewhere, in the dark, she hides her secret wishes.Again, the boy-girl thing.Come on in, the water's fine, for the Sharks.Her blues.A treacherous kiss finds my lips.Where are we?According to the informant, caught.Dancing, wrapped around each other like good poetry.Where are we?In between rounds, putting her blues in motion on the dance floor,hiding from all tomorrows.

A Bowl Of Cloves

It was a sound that pulled my eyes towards it. Now she is heartbroken, happy at last.It was me, it always is.We danced around in the water until I made her cry.Shipwrecked, tiny Gods cling to the bit of stump which breechesthe lagoon's surface.How long have they been there? Who has noticed?The here and now. It is forever empty here. Her heart. My God,my God. I sat staring at the pool. I should, I won't.The influence of lethargy and an appetite which has become boring.I watch jets of water move the vortex around.Now, a fallen leaf is caught, even still with this change of season,always the same pattern of movement.

Blue Tears

I was new in town, so there was a certain logic to my motive. Tolearn the mapof her skin.The silence that filled the space between us after we un-joined madeher uneasy.she would hide behind a plume of smoke or talk.“I was sixteen the first time I tasted blood. I got some ink tocelebrate.” She told me many times, but only if she thought I wasn'tpaying attention.She repeated it so many times it was easy for her to remember,which was good because it wasn't true. She did have the tattoosthough, there was a story in there somewhere.When she was excited her skin would quiver, causing them to dance.When shewas sad they'd turn blue, washed away by tears in a process I causedbut wasn'tallowed to see.I could imagine though. Even now they move with the motion ofsomething in adream.Sheets stained a spent blue. Lone witness to a solo dancer. Evidence.

Pastis

I had my drink. There was the spoon too. I do not know why it wasthere. All we ever did was drink.I began to wave it, as I talked. That did not seem right. I held it.This. The spoonout of place, a prop from a play somebody forgot to stage.I tapped my glass. Shimmering green circles spread. They quiver,limpid greens,Degas, about to give voice to a secret.No matter how much force I apply it always starts at the edge.It is the rhythm I must vary. I imagine Salome and her veils backedby a Bop quartet.It is no good without you to dance with.Falling, there is the sound of tin as the spoon hits the table.

Mahler

Death is private, but eventually we are all there.Tiny yellow flowers shot up from in-between the rocks. These littlepatches of color could hypnotize if you walked the whole shore.Now she is on top.Many rocks go without her flaxen hair.There are some greens to be seen too.Thin violent jags.This morning, coming out of the shower, I thought I heard her laugh,but it was only yesterday.

Chad Parenteau: is the editor of Spoonful, a tribute to the weekly Stone Soup Poetry readings in Cambridge, MA, which he also hosts. His work has recently appeared in TheNovember 3rd Club, Shampoo, Wilderness House Literary Review, and the anthology FrenchConnections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets. His new chapbook, Discard: Poems ForMy Apartment, is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. He resides in Jamaica Plain, MA. Visit his blog at: http://freakmachinepress.blogspot.com.

Sirrus Poe: writes short stories, poems, essays and photography have appeared in numerous print and online journals like, Snow Monkey, Carillon, Ancient Paths, Can We Have Our BallBack?, Siderreality, Unlikely Stories, Decompisitions, and elsewhere. His newest book, Releasing the Demons, has been released and is online at Amazon.com. All you have to do is look at the titles of his poems to realize that you're in for a surreal treat. He lives in New England. His website is www.sirruspoe.com

Helen Peterson: is the managing editor of Chopper Poetry Journal. She has had poetry published reviously in Fell Swoop, Right Hand Pointing, Elimae, Haruah, Zygote In My Coffee,Pedestal Magazine, Juked, Hiss Quarterly, Diddledog, Ken*Again, Literary Fever, DebrisMagazine, and Poetrybay. Her work is also featured in an anthology published by Poet Plant Press. Presently she is co-editing a special issue of Fell Swoop featuring the poets of New London, CT, which is where she lives. Gvie a knock on her website door at http://poetswearprada.home.att.net/HelenPeterson.html

Mehmet Ozgur: is an engineer by profession but he is an avid photographer at heart. His images cover a wide range of subjects, from landscape panoramas to normal format landscape, digital compositions and his smoke works, photographs comprising of stunning images of incense smoke, manily in monochrome but some in color. He takes the images and digitally manipulates them on the computer until he gets the effect he is after. His landscape photography ranges from minimalist to "normal" portraits to detailed panoramas in color. He lives in Virginia. Find more photography at http://photo.net/photos/mozgur.

Norman Olson: is a 58 year old poet, artist, and civil service worker. Since publishing is first poem in 1984, after many years of submissions and rejections, his work has appeared in CulturalLogic, Red River Review, and elsewhere. His art work has been published in 15 countries and was used as the illustrations for "What Language" (Slipstream, New York 2002) and in OutsiderArt among other places. He has worked in a factory that prints telephone books from 1968 to 1988 and currently is a civil servant holding down a cerical position. He lives in Maplewood, MN. His website is www.normanjolson.com.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal: was born in Mexico, in the city of Cuernavaca, in the state of Morelos. Presently he works in the mental health profession in Los Angles. His first book of poetry, Raw Materials, was published in 2004 for Pygmy Forest Press. His first two chapbooks, Without Peace and Keepers of Silence were published by Kendra Steiner Editons in 2007. He rsides in West Covina, CA. Read more of his poetry at: www.myspace.com/cuatemochi.

David Morgan: has been an arts worker and literature officer, writer-in-residence for education authorities, a prison and a psychiatric hospital staff member, and the subject of a Channel 4 presentation titled "Out Of Our Minds". He children's books include Blooming Cats, which won the Acorn award and was recently animated for BBC2's Words and Pictures Plus. His books of poetry includes Buzz Off. He teaches 11-19 year olds in Luton and lives in Bedfordshire in the UK with his wife and two children. Find out more at his website: www.earlyworkspress.co.uk/creative.ideas.htm

Lyndall Bass: has been studying art since she was a young girl. She worked first with private tutors then at local art classes and finally at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. her work is rooted in the great European traditions and is focused on classical techniques and collective thought about the arts throughout history. Her floral compositions have been reproduced widely and included in national reviews and publications about flower paintings. Her latest project is with the US Treasury Dept. where she is an associate mint designer for new circulating coinage. She lives in the state of New Mexico. Visit her website at www.lyndall-bass-art.com

Les Wicks: has been a figure of substance in the Australian literary community for three decades. he has toured widely in that nation's literary festivals and been published in well over 150 newpapers, anthologies and magazines across nine countires in seven languages.His books of poetry include The Vanguard Sleeps In (Glandular, 1981), Cannibals (Rochford St., 1985), Tickle (Island, 1993), Nitty Gritty (Five Islands, 1997), The Ways Of Waves (Sidewalk, 2000), Appetites of Light (Presspress, 2002) and Stories of the Feet (Five Islands, 2004). He lives in Sdyney, Austaralia. His website is http://leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm

Wayne Wolfson: his poetry/prose/short stories have appeared in Poetic Diversity,Outsiderleft, Get Underground, The Brink, Void Magazine, and been showcased in Laura Hird's literary site, and elsewhere. Recently, he has collaborated with Mars Syndicate on the album "Midnight Lattitudes" which is a Con Troppo Records release. He lives in California. His website is called Terrible Beauty and can be found at: www.waynewolfson.com

Closing Notes: The editor would like to thank the contributors for the use of their work. Each contributor reserves their original rights. Look for the next issue of CSR online on April. 1st. Copyright 2008 by Maurice Oliver. All Rights Reserved.

Blog Archive

I spent much of the 80s working as a freelance photographer in Europe. I returned to America in 1990. Then in 1995, I made a life-long dream come true when I traveled around the world for eight glorious months. Instead of taking pictures, I kept a journal, which eventually led me to what I feel is my "true calling". My poems have appeared in numerous national and international literary magazines both in print and on the web but I still peddle my time as a private tutor, which is not as bad as it sounds. Fact is, I no longer want to live on an iceberg, which is a good thing since they seem to be disappearing.